What turned out to be the final Blacky Ranchette album was a fine way for Gelb's alter ego to bow out — one can't but wonder how celebrated the album would have been by the No Depression crowd had it surfaced in 1995 rather than 1990. Unlike many of that crowd, though, Gelb actually has a sense of humor — the album title alone shows that much — and Sage Advice contains both serious and merry reflections on life. One of the best all-around lyrics, from the rollicking "Outside an Angel's Reach": "He used to be a devil with three sixes on his mind/six-pack, six-gun, six strings were his Saturday night." Gelb's Gram Parsons fixation understandably comes out here — Lucinda Williams' duet with him on "Burning Desire" almost inevitably recalls Emmy Lou Harris' work with Parsons as a result — but it's not a cloning, more an appreciation and extension of a style. Everything from classic steel guitar runs to gently weepy piano plays a part on the album, and it's definitely cosmic American music of its own stripe. A rotating collection of side players, including on-again-off-again Giant Sand guitarist Rainer Ptacek, make up the band this time around. Rather than being straight country per se, the collective can whip up some songs easily matching the amplification level of Giant Sand, notably a hard rocking version of Waylon Jennings' great "Trouble Man" that sounds like a potential role model for Ministry's attempt at Texas industrial on "Jesus Built My Hot Rod." The immediately following "Dreamland, New Mexico," credited as sung by Old Man Howe, has a line which sums up Sage Advice perfectly: "They're playing new fashion Western with that old fashion hardcore/good and loud, and none of that MOR." All this and a half-gentle, half-thrashed concluding cover of "You Are My Sunshine" as well. - AMG

1. Loving Cup
2. Burning Desire
3. Trouble Man
4. Dreamville, New Mexico
5. Indiosa
6. Wild Dog Waltz
7. Sage Advice
8. Outside An Angel's Reach (3 6ixes)
9. Shards Of Time
10. Still Too Far
11. Blanket Of Stars (Loving Cup: Reprise)
12. You Are My Sunshine